fauxklore

I got back from New York on Sunday afternoon and was off to the UK late in the day on Tuesday. There’s no longer a daytime flight from IAD to LHR, so it was the agony of a redeye, which is, at best, just tolerable, even in premium plus. The e-gates at Heathrow worked fine, but I arrived on the day of a major transit strike. This was a somewhat complicated trip and the transit strike definitely didn’t help. I’d vaguely intended to leave my luggage somewhere convenient (e.g. either Paddington or Victoria Station) and do something for a few hours. But I was exhausted and decided it would be best just to go to the hotel I was staying at overnight and figure things out from there.

By the way, I had managed to forget to bring my Oyster card with me. But using my credit card to tap in and out of the tube worked just fine. And the Elizabeth Line and Thameslink were not affected by the strike.

That hotel was the Bloc Hotel at Gatwick Airport. Why? Well, I was flying to Jersey from LGW the next morning. As it happened, by the time I got there, my room was ready and the idea of a nap was more appealing than the idea of actually doing anything. The hotel was quite comfortable and amazingly quiet for a hotel that is inside an airport. It had somewhat complicated controls for the lighting, but I figured out enough to be comfortable. The only problem with the hotel was that the bathroom is of the “wet room” variety. That is, there is no actual shower stall (not even a curtain), so taking a shower just floods the entire bathroom. I’ve encountered that before and it still strikes me as a horrible design flaw. Anyway, after catching up on some things on-line (e.g. puzzles) and napping for a couple of hours, I got supper at Giraffe, mere steps away. I went back to the room, read for a while, and got an okay night’s sleep.

I should probably explain that I was leveraging off an event in England to finally get to the Channel Islands, a region I’d been interested in for several years. Jersey is the largest island of the group and definitely has the most developed tourism infrastructure, though there is still plenty of agriculture there, including both cattle and vegetable farming. It doesn’t hurt that both Jersey and Guernsey are on the Travelers’ Century Club list of countries and territories. Also, I’d met a woman from Guernsey when I was on the Queen Mary 2 in November and made plans to get together with her.

In the morning, I just had to check out and take the elevator downstairs, where I used a machine to print out a bag tag and send my bag off to my plane. My British Air flight (booked using Alaska Air miles) to Jersey was fine. After retrieving my bag, I took a bus to the main bus terminal in Saint Helier, from which I had a short walk to my hotel. I had booked a room at the Pomme D’Or Hotel largely for its location, right in the heart of St. Helier and across the street from Liberation Square. It proved to be a good choice - both convenient and comfortable.

My first sightseeing excursion started with walking over to Liberation Square.

After a stop for lunch, I walked around the waterfront, which has an interesting (but non-working) steam clock.

Then I went over to the Maritime Museum. I’m not particularly interested in shipping, so I opted to go just to the Occupation Tapestry Gallery. This has 13 tapestries (one for each of the 12 parishes on the island, plus a final one added later on) having to do with the Nazi occupation of Jersey during World War II. The work is quite detailed and I found this fascinating. Here are photos of a couple of the panels, so you can see for yourself.

There are also videos about the occupation and liberation and about the making of the tapestries. I found all of this very interesting, especially as it is something we never really learned about in school when I was growing up. (We spent almost all of European history on the French Revolution, with everything from World War I onwards covered in under a week.)

I wandered up to the Central Market, getting there about an hour before it closed. I suspect it would have been livelier a bit earlier in the day. I browsed briefly at a book stall and found a yarn shop, which was (alas) already closed. And there was this interesting fountain to look at.

I spent another hour or so wandering a bit aimlessly around St. Helier (and getting lost in the process). Eventually, I made my way back to the hotel and, after eating supper, had an early night to try to get my body clock back in sync.

One of the sights I was particularly eager to see was the Jersey Zoo, which had been founded by Gerald Durrell. I have to admit that I haven’t read any of his books, though I have read a couple by his brother, Lawrence. Gerald was a pioneer in conservation and founded the Jersey Zoo specifically to breed endangered species. Getting there is fairly straightforward, as there is regular bus service from the terminal in St. Helier. There are a couple of different routes and the one I took was quite scenic, making me wish I had more time to explore some of the places it passed.

The zoo itself is not really my sort of zoo, since it runs heavily towards primates and I am a lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) type of girl. Still, I did watch some gorillas and geladas (Ethiopian baboons) and (more briefly) orangutans and tamarins and a few lemurs. I will concede that this young gorilla was cute.

And I don’t think I’d ever seen geladas before.

There was also a good reptile house (poison dart frogs!) and a lot of birds. But I think the most interesting part of the zoo is the building devoted to Gerald Durrell’s life story. His grave (well, the site where his ashes were interred) is right outside that.

Overall, I was reasonably satisfied with my visit to the zoo.

I started my final day on Jersey by seeking out a statue I’d seen a photo of on-line. I did find it, but only after a brief diversion to listen to a ukulele club.

The story behind this is that, just as British people call the French “frogs,” the French decided to call the people of Jersey “les crapauds” meaning toads. The residents of Jersey responded by adopting the toad as a symbol for their residents. I’m not sure how old this story is, however, since the toad statue wasn’t actually erected until 2004. Still, it’s an interesting landmark.

There is a yarn shop a short walk from there and, alas, I was able to verify that there isn’t any local yarn available. So Jersey will not see a place in the long-standing knitting project that I call “the coat of many countries.”

Another priority for me was visiting the Jersey Museum. This includes a reasonably informative film about the island, a history exhibition (focused on the Nazi occupation, the liberation, and the aftermath, e.g. the marketing of Jersey as a honeymoon island), an art gallery, and a Victorian house. It was prety interesting and, best of all, admission was free.

There was a food festival going on nearby. I might have gone to it, but it was very crowded and there was an admission charge, so I opted just to sit on a bench across the street and listen to music for a little while. Then I decided to take “Le Petit Train,” which is a tourist ride (not a real train) that goes along the coast to St Aubin. It was scenic and the narration was entertaining enough, so it was a reasonable way to kill a little over an hour. After that I retrieved my bag from the hotel and headed over to the ferry port, to take the ferry to Guernsey,

The ferry ride should have been an hour and 10 minutes. But, as we approached St. Peter Port (the capital of Guernsey) the ferry began to vibrate and we pulled back out to sea. Eventually the captain announced that we had to abort landing due to a propeller problem. It turned out that a fishing bob had gotten caught in one propeller. They did eventually free it (so we were able to dock) but not before people were speculating that we might have to spend the night on the boat. I managed to find my way to my hotel (the Best Western Moores Hotel) where I collapsed for the night. While the hotel was at a convenient location, it was a bit weirdly designed. For example, there’s an elevator, which is very useful if you have a large rolling suitcase. But there was a flight of six steps down and another of six steps up in the middle of the hallway between that elevator and my room. And the bathtub was very deep, which is nice if you’re going to soak in it, but makes getting in and out to take a shower a bit treacherous.

I texted with my friend, Julie, and we made arrangements to get together for lunch on Monday. I had arrived on Saturday night and on Sunday there was a Seaside Sunday Festival event along the waterfront. There were craft stalls lining the quay and food stalls (and a stage with music) on the Victoria Pier. I did buy one crafts item (a felt hat). I enjoyed listening to a couple of singers. And I ate some tasty fish and chips and some particularly delicious gelato, especially the orange ricotta flavor. By the way, there was a surprising variety of ethnic foods, including West African dishes like jollof rice, and stalls selling Thai and Vietnamese food.

I also took Guernsey’s version of Le Petit Train, which had some interesting commentary. For example, at the bathing (i.e. swimming) beach, they had a story about a lifeguard who could only rescue people by throwing a rope towards them because he had never learned how to swim. There were also good views of the primary tourist attraction in St. Peter Port, namely Castle Cornet, which dates back to the 13th century.

On Monday, Julie met me at my hotel and whisked me off around the island. We had lunch at a restaurant called Coast (in the Imperial Hotel) with a lovely view of the sea. Our next stop was the Folk and Costume Museum. The “folk” part consisted largely of household items, e.g. an old-fashioned kitchen, and a display of a child’s room with toys, as well as a dollhouse and a collection of marionettes. The “costume” part included a selection of Dior dresses, as well as a collection of historic costumes, many of them hand-sewn. There were also some knitted Guernsey sweaters, which are notable for the use of steeking for creating necklines and armholes - a technique which, frankly, I find terrifying.

After that we went to Oatlands, a small shopping center. Alas, the crafts store there told us there was no local yarn, the chocolate store was closed, and the cafe didn’t have Guernsey gache, a fruit cake that I was curious about. Julie continued around the island, stopping at a few places with views across to Sark and Herm. Ideally, I would have had time for day trips to those islands, but I was at the mercy of ferry schedules, so it would have to be some other time. At any rate, there were lovely views from the places we stopped at.

Back in St. Peter Port, we did succeed in finding gache at Cafe Emilia, just a couple of doors from my hotel. This proved to be somewhat similar to the fruity bread my friend, Tim, makes, though not quite as sweet. At any rate, it was quite tasty, eaten with butter and accompanied by tea.

My major expedition on Tuesday was to the Guernsey Museum. This was actually not very far from the hotel, but I took a taxi because I found the idea of climbing the hill to get there to be intimidating. The museum is in a lovely park (Candie Park) which also has a library, gardens, and a statue of Queen Victoria. The museum was very interesting. For example, there was a display of paintings about nature, which included some relief casts of how the paint was applied. The Discovery Room was intended for children, but did have recordings of a storyteller performing Egyptian myths. The main museum had all sorts of odds and ends, including an embroidered sampler and a lock of Victor Hugo’s hair. (He had lived on Guernsey when in exile and you can tour his house if that sort of thing interests you.)

I was particularly interested in a display of glass reproductions of invertebrates because it was made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, who also made the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History which is one of my favorite museum exhibits of all time. There is plenty of material about early life on Guernsey from neolithic times through the Romans. I especially enjoyed sections on Guernsey language (which included samples to listen to), folklore, and witchcraft. Me being me, of course I had to listen to all of the stories.

After a stop for a light lunch, I wandered around the Candie Gardens, which were lovely.

By the way, there is a Guernsey Tapestry, presumably similar to the Jersey one. But it is in storage, so I was unable to see it.

In the evening, Julie and I went to Saint James Assembly Hall for a poetry reading by Brian Bilston, which was part of the Guernsey Literary Festival. He has been one of my favorite poets for a while and his reading was phenomenal. He engaged well with the audience, making occasional side comments and enhancing his poetry with his deliberate pacing. If you have the opportunity to hear him read, go. Unfortunately, they ran out of books.

Overall, I had a good time in the Channel Islands, though I could have used a few more days. But I very much wanted to take the ferry versus flying back to the UK mainland, which I did the next day. The ferry from St. Peter Port to Portsmouth takes about 8 hours, so I’d opted to pay a little extra for lounge seating. That’s less crowded, but the reclining chairs were just okay. I read and napped for a lot of the trip. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick, though several other people did. So, if you do this, you might want to bring your seasickness preventative of choice. (Mine is acupressure bands, with bonine as a backup for more extreme conditions.)

We docked at Portsmouth and I got a taxi to the train station. I boarded the first train from there to London, which took me to Victoria Station. That was convenient to get a District Line train to Earl’s Court - and the next part of this travelogue.